While everything from Bleacher Report requires one part sodium and one part chloride, this line from NBA analyst Jared Zwerling‘s piece should be taken with an extra packet of salt: “Bradley will be a restricted free agent next summer, so things could get ‘tricky,’ as one source said, for the Celtics to keep him.”

There’s really nothing tricky about the Celtics keeping Bradley. They can match any offer this summer, and they have the means to do so. The hard part, given present salary cap restrictions, will be for others to offer Bradley $8 million.

The Celtics thinking here probably goes something like this: We currently value Bradley as a $6 million player, but if he commands $8 million on the open market, then so be it. We can still match it. No harm, no foul, no overpayment. There’s no sense in starting a bidding war when everyone else has yet to arrive at the auction.

Given the guard’s inability to remain healthy, it was a smart play on Danny Ainge‘s part. The variance in what Bradley might earn this summer was simply too vast to offer more than a bargain level salary at the time.

However, Bradley has played himself into the $8 million conversation as an All-NBA defender averaging a career-high 15.7 points on 44.6 percent shooting, especially considering Marcus Thornton cashes a similar check.

But Thornton’s deal was signed in 2011, and most teams smartened up this summer. Look at the deals top free agent shooting guards landed. Talented two-guards Tony Allen (4 years, $20 million), Gerald Henderson (3 years, $18 million), Kyle Korver (4 years, $24 million), Kevin Martin (4 years, $28 million), J.J. Redick (4 years, $28 million), O.J. Mayo (3 years, $24 million) and Monta Elllis (3 years, $25 million) all signed between $6-8 million, and they also took a quarter of the league out of the running for Bradley’s services.